The Quarantine Story

With the COVID-19 quarantine in place, all of my travel has been suspended. I was supposed to head over to Kansas City for a week but that got cancelled so I have had to improvise. Since I can’t go anywhere other than locally, I decided to share a story about how I keep myself sane while under quarantine.

As far back as I can remember, driving has always been a soothing mechanism for me. Whenever I would feel the pressures of day to day life, or need some time to myself to just think about whatever I am going through, I’d get in the car and go for a drive. That’s probably why the 4 Guys in a Car trip was so appealing to me.

Right around this time last year, my employer closed the office and moved many of us to “work from home” positions. It wasn’t a prospect I was fond of as I had never worked a job full time from home before and I knew that social contact was something I needed. Despite not having anyone around, I did get used to it but found myself having to force myself to get out of the house each day for something.

Now with the quarantine in place, the whole “stay home” thing has been even harder. I have however been finding a way to still keep my sanity, while abiding by the rules of “social distancing”.

Getting in my car and going for a drive around the city still keeps me physically distant from others. But it also provides me a way to get out of the house and not feel so couped up.

You can see by the map image above that I do a bit of a loop around the city. I live in eastern Riverview so I head towards Dieppe and then do a counter-clockwise circle around the city until I eventually find myself back home. Depending on the day it might take an hour or less. But it’s still a nice drive and lets me relax and enjoy being somewhere other than in my home.

Yesterday I decided that I needed to take a much longer drive. The quarantine situation combined with my recent change in jobs had my head swirling and a quick loop around the city was not going to cut it. So instead I did a much larger loop and ended up driving for 2.5hrs. By the time I got home, I had a big smile on my face and was able to enjoy the rest of my day.

It’s not for everyone, but for those who need to get out of the house from time to time, a good drive can help settle the mind.